HONG KONG – The sisters from south-western China arrived in Hong Kong on a recent holiday, aiming to see as much as they could – in less than 12 hours.

Carrying only a small bag each, bank worker Hu Di, 30, and student Hu Ke, 20, sampled beef noodles in the Central business district, took turns posing for sunset photos at a waterfront promenade, then captured the city’s illuminated skyline after dark.

Buying only medicinal oils and retro comics as souvenirs, they spent less than US$150 (S$193) in the day and went back across the border to stay the night.

They are part of a wildly popular trend among Chinese who call themselves “special forces tourists”: independent travellers who get in and out of the city as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Chinese travellers make up more than three-quarters of all tourists in the financial hub. But while they were once big spenders in Hong Kong – buying luxury watches, handbags and designer clothes – they now spend less time and money. That is a challenge to the city’s efforts to revive a travel economy hurt by years of anti-government protests, pandemic restrictions and concerns in the West over its tightening of freedoms through a national security crackdown.

Hong Kong, which once billed itself as Asia’s World City, is now seeking to brand itself as the region’s events capital, emphasising concerts and trade shows over shopping, to give travellers reasons to return and to spend more.

In 2025, it unveiled a US$4 billion sports park at the site of the city’s former airport, Kai Tak. Its centrepiece is a purple-hued stadium with air-conditioning under each of its 50,000 seats. It was almost at capacity during an annual Rugby Sevens tournament in March.

Featuring teams from around the world, the tournament drew overseas visitors like Ms Salome Bale, 49, a pharmacy worker from New Zealand. The new stadium left her speechless, she said, adding that the state-of-the-art facilities and the thrumming atmosphere made the games the experience of a lifetime.

The next month, kaleidoscopic visual effects were projected on its retractable roof during four sold-out nights of